The Ship's quiet hum was a balm after the predatory silence of the moor. Alberto lay on the cool floor for a long time, just breathing, letting the sterile, neutral environment scrub the feeling of ancient, hungry eyes from his mind. Trias remained half-emerged nearby, a steady, earthy presence in the psychic bond.
That world was old and sick, Trias sent, the concept carrying a digger's distaste for unstable ground. Its roots are tangled with wanting things. Not good digging.
"No," Alberto agreed, sitting up. He still clutched the Gnome's Core and the Sylph's Tear. They felt different here—subdued, but still humming with their specific energies. "Not good digging. But good learning."
He placed the new acquisitions in the Vault. The interface glowed.
Acquisition: [Tier 2] Attuned Geomantic Focus (Gnome's Core). Synergy detected with Wood Manipulation & Earth-affinity Partner (Trias). Enables sustainable terrain alteration and deep-earth sensing.
Acquisition: [Tier 2] Attuned Aeromantic Focus (Sylph's Tear). Synergy detected with Ice Manipulation. Enables refined atmospheric control, wind-channeling, and temperature differential creation.
Analysis: Localized magical foci provide greater control and lower energy cost than generic Elemental Catalysts (Pokémon Stones) but lack raw power output. Optimal use: Fine-tuning and sustained operations.
It was as he thought. The Pokémon stones were batteries—high-capacity, high-drain. The magus-world stones were specialized tools. He needed both. And he needed to be able to use them without being torn apart by the local reality.
Which meant he needed a foundation of personal strength that was his own. A system he could master from the ground up, in a world where power was meant to be wielded aggressively, defensively, and understood technically.
His eyes found the door. It was simple, blond wood with a rice paper panel. The symbol: a stylized, swirling leaf. Naruto.
The book here was a mix of historical record and technical manual. It detailed the Chakra System—the conversion of physical and spiritual energy into a usable force. It spoke of hand seals, of jutsu, of elemental transformations and bloodline limits. It was, to his engineer's mind, a fascinatingly structured power grid. It had rules, progressions, and explicit weaknesses. It was something he could study.
"This is the training ground, Trias," Alberto said, determination solidifying. "We get the lay of the land, acquire the local operating system, and stress-test our capabilities in a controlled—well, relatively controlled—environment."
He prepared carefully. He dressed in his dark fatigues. He secured the pack with rations and water. He took one Fire Stone and one Water Stone from the Vault as emergency reserves. He did not take the Leaf Stone; the memory of the frenzied shrub was too fresh.
His free ability choice was critical. The Catalogue presented options as he opened the door.
World: Naruto (Pre-Shippuden Era).
Select One Foundational Ability:
- Chakra Coil Formation & Basic Control
- Basic Taijutsu Proficiency
- One Nature Transformation Affinity (Choose: Fire, Water, Wind, Earth, Lightning)
- Genjutsu Resistance
He didn't hesitate. Chakra Coil Formation & Basic Control. Without the engine, you couldn't drive the car. He selected it.
A sensation unlike any previous infusion coursed through him. It was internal, systemic. He felt new pathways—tenketsu—open along his meridians, a network of tiny gates. He felt a new pool of energy begin to swirl in his core, a blend of his physical vitality and his spiritual energy—his chakra. It was volatile, unfamiliar, but the grant came with the instinctive, bare-minimum knowledge of how to circulate it. He held up a hand, focusing. A faint, erratic blue glow sputtered around his fingertips before winking out. The drain was immediate and significant; his body wasn't conditioned for it yet.
But he had the system. Now he needed the currency to buy the manuals.
---
He emerged in a dense, humid forest. Not the friendly vibrancy of Viridian, nor the ancient sentience of the moor. This forest was a tool, a weapon. The trees grew straight and tall for concealment, the canopy thick for shade. He could hear distant, rhythmic thwacks—kunai hitting wood.
He was in the Land of Fire, near Konoha, just before the Chunin Exams. A time of relative peace, but simmering tension. Perfect for a low-profile entrance.
His first objective: information and capital. He couldn't sell Pokémon stones here; they'd raise too many questions. He needed a local solution. Using his basic chakra control to muffle his steps (a strenuous but effective technique), he scouted.
He found what he needed near a small, outlying village: a C-rank mission board. Not for ninja, but for civilians and low-ranking samurai. Bandit problems, pest control, land surveys.
One notice stood out: "Persistent Earth-Style nuisance disrupting farmland east of sector 7. Suspect low-level rogue ninja or wild summon. Reward: 50,000 ryo."
Earth-Style. Trias's specialty. And a "nuisance" suggested something non-lethal, like repeated Doton: Dochū Senkō (Headhunter) tricks or mud walls. Alberto took the notice.
The farmland was a mess. Deep, random trenches cut through the fields. Mounds of earth erupted like zits on the landscape. A single, surly-looking farmer explained that every night, the land would churn, undoing the day's repairs. No people were ever seen.
Alberto waited for dusk. With Trias released, he asked the Dugtrio to sense the earth.
The dirt is unhappy, Trias reported. It is being pinched and pulled. There is a… a small, angry mind down there. Not deep. A worm with chakra.
A wild summon, then. Or a minor earth spirit gone feral. Alberto formulated a plan. It wasn't a ninja battle; it was pest control.
He had Trias tunnel down, not to attack, but to create a resonant vibration in the soil, a call of deep, stable earth—the feeling of the Gnome's Core. Alberto himself sat on the ground, placing his hands on the soil. He pushed his nascent chakra into the earth, not with force, but with the concept of stillness, amplified by his Wood manipulation's affinity for growth and stability. He was trying to broadcast a "Cease and Desist" order in the language of the land.
For an hour, nothing. Then, the soil in front of him bulged. Not with violence, but with curiosity. A creature emerged. It was a Mole-Tailed Beast, a tiny, whiskered thing no larger than a badger, with gleaming black eyes and claws that shimmered with earthy chakra. It chittered at him, confused. The disruptive pinching had been its attempt to "fix" the farmland it felt was improperly arranged.
"The digging is done," Alberto said, focusing his intent through their shared earth connection. "This land is for growing. You can guard it, but do not reshape it."
The creature sniffed the air, sensing Trias's deep, powerful presence below and Alberto's stabilizing chakra. It let out a submissive squeak, burrowed a small, neat den at the field's edge, and vanished. The earth fell still.
The farmer, watching from a distance, was astounded. He paid the 50,000 ryo without question.
It was a start. Alberto used some of the money to buy basic supplies: soldier pills (for chakra fatigue), a set of plain black shinobi-style clothes, and most importantly, blank scrolls and ink.
Back in a rented room at a roadside inn, he opened the Catalogue. The Premium menu for the Naruto world was extensive. Jutsu, training methods, even bloodline limits—all for astronomical prices. But he didn't need the high-end stuff yet. He needed fundamentals.
He purchased two things:
- Chakra Control Exercises: Tree & Water Walking: 15,000 ryo
- Basic Nature Transformation: Earth Release Principles: 30,000 ryo
The knowledge flooded into him—detailed mental schematics of chakra adhesion and distribution for walking on vertical surfaces and water. And, crucially, the theory and first steps of converting raw chakra into Earth-natured chakra. It was perfectly synergistic with Trias and his own Gnome's Core.
For the next week, Alberto trained relentlessly. By day, in a remote forest clearing with Trias.
Tree Walking: He failed, repeatedly, peeling bark off trees with erratic chakra bursts. He drew on the Sylph's Tear to calm his energy flow, imagining the wind smoothing out turbulence. Slowly, his control improved. By the third day, he could walk up the trunk and stand on a branch upside-down, though the effort left him drenched in sweat.
Earth Release: This was harder. Converting chakra was an esoteric skill. He had the theory, but the practice was like trying to change the colour of his blood. He held the Gnome's Core, focusing on its essence of fertile, solid ground. He had Trias demonstrate, the Dugtrio's very body a lesson in earth manipulation. He poured chakra into the soil, visualizing it not as energy, but as a command.
On the fifth day, kneeling with his hands on the ground, he gritted his teeth and pushed.
The earth in front of him didn't rise dramatically. It quivered. Then, a small, fist-sized clod of dirt levitated six inches off the ground, trembling with his effort. It was pathetic by ninja standards. To Alberto, it was a miracle of applied engineering. He had successfully converted and outputted elemental chakra.
You make the dirt sing a very small, new song, Trias observed, amused. But it is your song.
By night, he studied the scrolls, cross-referencing the chakra theory with his own understanding of his elemental powers. He began to see parallels. His Magma manipulation wasn't just Fire; it was Earth and Fire combined, a natural Kekkei Genkai. His Ice was Water and Wind. The systems could be complementary, if he could bridge them.
The plan was working. He was building a foundation. But the Naruto world, even in peacetime, was not a safe laboratory.
He was testing his Earth Release on a riverbank, trying to solidify a patch of mud, when he was interrupted.
"Well, well. What do we have here? A rookie missing-nin, playing in the dirt?"
Alberto spun. Three figures stood on the other side of the river. They wore forehead protectors slashed through—rogue ninja. They looked lean, mean, and hungry. One held a wickedly curved kunai. Another had her hands already in a ram seal. The leader, a man with a scar across his nose, smirked.
"Looks like he's all alone. And that… thing with him isn't a normal summon. That's worth something to the right collector."
Trias erupted from the ground between Alberto and the river, three heads hissing. Bandits! They smell of old blood and bad metal!
Alberto's heart hammered. This wasn't a pest. This was a combat engagement. His first real one. He had no offensive ninjutsu. His taijutsu was basic military hand-to-hand. His elemental powers were unrefined.
The female rogue finished her seals. "Suiton: Mizuame no Jutsu!" She spat a glob of sticky, syrup-like water that arced across the river, aiming to trap his feet.
Instinct took over. Alberto shoved chakra to his feet and leapt, executing a wobbly but effective Tree Walk vertically up the nearest trunk, the sticky water splattering below. The movement was clumsy, but it surprised them.
"A runner! Get him!"
The kunai-wielder charged across the water, using chakra to skate on the surface. The leader began forming seals for a fire technique.
Alberto's mind, cold with combat logic, analyzed. Close-range fighter inbound. Ranged fire support preparing. Controller holding back.
He dropped from the tree, landing hard. As the kunai-wielder closed, Alberto didn't reach for a weapon. He slammed his hands—and all his frantic, fearful chakra—into the ground.
He wasn't trying for Earth Release. He was using his raw, unformed chakra to amplify his innate Wood Manipulation, fueled by the panicked memory of the Leaf Stone's explosive growth.
"Don't you touch my partner!"
The ground between him and the charging rogue erupted. But not with earth. Thick, woody vines as hard as iron, studded with thorns sharp as kunai, shot upward in a tangled, furious wall. They weren't graceful or controlled. They were a primal, defensive thicket.
The rogue screamed as thorns ripped through his legs. He was tangled, trapped, his charge turned into a bloody snare.
The leader's eyes widened. "What kind of jutsu is that?!" His fireball, half-formed, fizzled as he lost focus.
The female rogue tried another water jet. Alberto, still connected to the raging growth, willed the vines to surge forward, not at her, but at the riverbank. They plunged into the mud, drinking the water, swelling and hardening into a massive, soggy barricade that absorbed her attack.
The fight was in stasis. One rogue trapped and bleeding. Two others stunned by the bizarre, non-standard "ninjutsu."
Alberto was panting, his chakra nearly depleted, his head pounding from the psychic effort of the uncontrolled growth. He met the leader's eyes across the thorny wall.
"You can try to burn through it," Alberto said, his voice rough. He let a flicker of Magma heat rise in his free hand, making the air waver. "Or you can take your friend and go. Your choice."
He was bluffing. He had one maybe-fireball in him, tops. But the display of unknown, violent plant release and the promise of fire was enough.
The leader cursed, gestured sharply. The woman used a water blade to carefully cut her companion free. They dragged him back, casting fearful glances at the sinister, still-growing thicket, and fled into the forest.
The moment they were gone, Alberto collapsed to his knees. The vines, bereft of his will and chakra, began to wilt and crumble into brittle husks. The cleared area looked like a botanical crime scene.
Trias nuzzled him worriedly. You fought well. The earth rose to protect its digger.
"That… wasn't chakra," Alberto gasped, looking at his trembling hands. "Not really. That was something else. Something messier." He had used the world's energy system as a catalyst for his own innate power. It was inefficient, devastating, and completely outside the standard shinobi playbook.
He had won his first fight. Not as a ninja, but as a Maintainer using the wrong tool for the job in a brutally effective way. He had currency. He had basic chakra control. And he had a very clear, new objective.
He needed to buy a real offensive jutsu. Something that wouldn't leave him drained after one use. He looked at the Catalogue, at the price for a basic Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique.
It was expensive. It would require more missions. More risk.
He stood, brushing dirt from his clothes. The peace of the training ground was shattered. He was in the game now. The ninja world had seen him, and it would see him again.
"Come on, Trias," he said, recalling his partner. "Time to get a real job." He needed to head toward Konoha, where the missions were plentiful, and where a certain Copy Ninja's infamous library might just have the scrolls he needed to buy.